Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

Yup! I've been reading. Three novels on the trip. The Last Trip since I've been home, also finishing up Hallie Ephron's book, 1001 Books for Every Occasion. Lots of good suggestions. And for about a year I've been struggling to get through The Guermantes Way. Almost done. Don't think Hallie recommended Proust. He's a bear, but so rewarding.

Writing, yes. Always writing. More rejection. One that particularly stung yesterday, because the editor didn't like the characters, thought the main character unbelievable and the beginning forced. This was the book which my writer's group favors.

I admit I have plenty of unlikeable characters in my books, which is odd, because in life I tend to like most everyone. There are a few exceptions of course, but if I think back over jobs and organizations, most of the folks were all right.

The beginning of this book originally started much earlier in the story, but there is always, always, the advice to get to the murder, the action, no back story, blah, blah, and obviously the advice "shows." Forced beginning. How to make the character believable? My character is much different from me, so how to get into someone else's head? Dunno. Struggling with that in the current opus. So, suck it up, as usual. Currently, that book is nowhere. I'm wondering if I should try non-fiction. Short stories? Poems? Put down the pen forever. Then what?

Arithmetic, you ask? Always the calculations about the month and the money in this time of diminished value of investments. We have been through hard times before, and are used to scrounging, so it isn't so bad. The shock and adjustment were the worst things. So . . . suck it up there, too. Life is a series of suck-ups, isn't it? Or periods thereof.

Goulash soup last night. I stopped at Shaw's and bought one potato and one stalk of celery. . . everything else was in house, and then I discovered, whoops, no pepper. Used the rest of my jar of dried peppers. Couldn't tell any difference. My trick is to use 1 t. sweet paprika, 1 t. hot paprika, and 1 t. smoked paprika. Generous but not obscenely so toss of carraway seeds. Plenty of onion and garlic. I used some cheapy round steak that became tender in cooking. Plenty left for lunch today. I also used a mixture of beef and chicken broth.

Next topic today: competitive cooking

Surviving a Water Landing

A few years ago, researching a short story that I have yet to write, I ran across the following article which is germane to yesterday's crash landing of a passenger plane in the Hudson River. See the link at the end of this blog.

Isn't it just unbelievably great and cool and wonderful to have a bit of really good news? And with the inauguration coming up, life looks good even if the economy is still in the toilet.

A mini-report on the economy as witnessed by me today: Chinese restaurant C.K. Shanghai in Wellesley, good crowd, good food, cheap menu. I went for General Gau's chicken.

At the AAA in Westwood: lots of people. Like us, they must be getting maps and guides to go somewhere. Price of gas is up again.

At Walmart: again, lots of people, many buying groceries. We got cat litter, cat food, cat diabetic supplies and bottled water. I am buying Fancy Feast without gluten for the diabetic cat.

At the tire store: not crowded but phone ringing and some customers. Ye gods, what a new set of tires will set you back. Holy freakin' crap!

People are out and about and buying lunch, planning trips and cruising the Walmart aisles. This is good.

Here is the link to the water landing site:http://www.equipped.org/watertrees.htm